If you want to sell an individual download, you probably have to keep the material in roughly the same installment size as a print comic book: something in the 20-25 pages/installment.  This also pretty much locks you into a monthly schedule, where most popular webcomics are, at worst, weekly.  This means you need to be reminding people to come back once a month.  Here, DC and Marvel with new titles in shared universes might have a leg up in keeping the traditional format and keeping traffic flowing on a weekly basis, just as the keep the audience coming to the shop on Wednesday for the weekly fix. (In this case Marvel’s DCU site is the portal replacing the shop and you theoretically come back regularly for content updates.)  On the other hand, the online audience isn’t used to late shipping issues like the print audience is.  Foul-ups with a cross-over event (delays in Civil War/Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis/Secret Invasion – surely not) and cascading delays in webcomics would likely be received with an exodus of traffic to other sites, but that would be the case if their installments were monthly, weekly or daily; paid downloads or free viewing.

You also have the question of where you sell these downloads, if that’s the model chosen.  The publisher’s own site?  SlaveLabor/SLG does it that way.  PullBoxOnline is technically a different site than Devil’s Due, despite management.  Marvel’s DCU is on their site, but they’re experimenting with iTunes for “motion comics.”  Of course, if it’s on a different site, you’re making less money and have to charge more.  Do you offer retailers an affiliate fee for referring customers, not unlike Amazon?  (Which if you followed Amazon’s lead, would likely be a 10% fee, so on a $1.99 download, the retailer would get roughly 20 cents and Marvel would have $1.79 before various fees).  One problem with downloads and small installments, like Freak Angels (hypothetically), the further you dip under $1 for an individual paid download, the lower the percentage of that $1 you keep after transaction fees.  Those transaction fees are the #1 reason subscriptions are more palatable to publishers, even over the one year commitment.

For that matter, how do you price a download?  One way would be to try and replicate the income from a print comic, the net of which is likely in the vicinity of $1-$1.25.  Motion comics are $1.99.  Songs tend to be $0.99.  SLG charges $0.89 or $0.69/issue.  PullBoxOnline charges $0.99.  DriveThruComics prices things anywhere from $0.72 to $2.99/download on print cover prices up to $4.00.  We’re talking a wide range here.

Print publishers will also need to keep pace with their current production schedule, in terms of pushing out printed collected editions on a regular basis.  The one page per weekday format, while not necessarily delivering a “chunk” of story like print readers are used to in installments, would keep roughly on pace with the output of a monthly comic.  The 6 pages per week format of Freak Angels is roughly the same as a monthly comic (and necessitates the odd skip week when a 5-week month rears its head).  Girl Genius, a popular example of a print comic that ditched printed periodical format for web serialization and print graphic novels, maintains a pace slightly ahead of a print bi-monthly output by offering new pages Monday, Wednesday and Friday (~26 pages/2 months).  The greater the emphasis on graphic novels/TPBs as a revenue stream, the longer the investment period before the content can start earning out vs. the creators’ advance.  This could significantly change how deep a publisher’s cash reserves need to be if they’re offering any compensation besides back-end royalties.

Conventional wisdom of the webcomics community says you sell a ton more merchandise and books if the comics are free to browse.  Print publishers are used to the paid content model, and have the added channel conflict with retailers to consider.

Will the current 20-25 page installment be the norm as the web continues to take a greater share of distribution?  What will this mean for shared universes and cross-overs?  In the list of differences between newspaper strips and comic books, where does installment size rank in importance?  Most of the people who are already doing webcomics have answered these questions for themselves, but as the print publishers stagger over to the web and cry “uncle,” these formatting questions will loom large in their offices.

That comics will need to have complimentary presence in a world where the direct market has imploded isn’t a question.  The question is what format will these new webcomics take, and how will they be distributed?  Will the adopted formats fit the above menu or will something new be cooked up.  My best guess is the 22-25 page paid downloads will be a large part of the initial effort, but publishers (and individuals) not heavily invested in the existing monthly print market have much less pressure for a direct translation of print purchase to digital download.

Next: Graphic Novels in a Post-Direct Market World

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